


The Investment

by yunyu



Category: Naruto
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - No Tailed Beasts, Arranged Marriage, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Concubines, Dark, Did I Write This Fic Just To Kill Hiashi With Tentacles?, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Humiliation, No But I'd Be Lying If I Didn't Call It a Major Bonus, Objectification, Patriarchy, Revenge, Revisionist Fairy Tale, Survival, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Teratophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-03-30 03:56:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunyu/pseuds/yunyu
Summary: In canon Naruto, Hinata's father never apologizes to her for her abusive upbringing. She forgives him anyway and all is forgotten.In the Beauty and the Beast legend, the Beauty's father is responsible for her being given to the Beast, but in almost every version he is completely absolved of the slightest blame for this.And then there's the little matter of what makes the Beast so bestial, and how the Beauty is supposed to handle her attraction.I have a lot of Feelings about this, and I'm working it out via dark fic.Hinata is the Beauty. Kakuzu is the Beast. Read to see how they change each other. And/or to see Hiashi Hyuuga get literally ripped apart by tentacles, eventually. Be mindful of tags for triggers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will come out gradually through the fic, but if you're confused in the beginning, there are no tailed beasts in this alternate universe--no Madara/Obito pulling strings on Nagato. Akatsuki is running according to Nagato's original aim of undercutting, bankrupting, and dismantling the hidden villages to eventually take over the world.
> 
> I won't be dealing too much with the greater world in this fic, which will be fairly narrowly focused on Hinata and Kakuzu.

A long, long, long time ago, a bitter and disillusioned young man stole a forbidden jutsu of his village and used it to unlock a eldritch secret that lay chained within its waterfall.

“Oh my,” cooed the being he awoke. Too many eyes narrowed as they looked at his shameful scars. “They sure have made a mess of you, haven’t they?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I want you to help me make a mess of them.”

“Oh _my_ ,” it repeated, “but you know it will come at a cost.”

“Everything does.”

“Very well. I shall take your heart and give you a body that can take the hearts of others. You will be a monstrous beast forever, unless and until you manage without a heart to love someone wholeheartedly--and gain their love in return.”

“That sounds like a blessing, not a curse,” he replied, and the deal was struck.

———

“What the fuck do you mean, we’re not going to the titty bars?”

Kakuzu did not lose count of the wad of payment he was doublechecking. “We’re not going. I’ll be busy.”

“You love the titty bars! I love the titty bars!” Hidan pointed his scythe at Kakuzu accusingly. “That’s the only fucking thing we’ve got in common, getting our damn rocks off at the titty bars!”

“And I won’t be going in future,” Kakuzu continued calmly. “That’s why I’ll be busy.” To the bail bondsman he said, “The count is correct. A pleasure.”

Hidan chased after him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa? Never? No more titty bars today? _No more titty bars ever?_ ”

“Say ‘titty bars’ one more time Hidan,” Kakuzu snapped. “I don’t need you for another week so I have no problem with leaving you chopped into pieces in the meantime.”

“C’mon! You can’t just drop a bomb like that on me and not expect me to want to know why! That’s bullshit!”

Kakuzu sighed. Hidan ran his mouth more than anyone in the organization, but he supposed the idiot had some pale imitation of a point here. It wasn’t as if it was a secret. “I’m seizing a good opportunity to invest in a concubine.”

“A concubine,” Hidan repeated, his eyes more than usually vacuous. “A concubine? The fuck? You’re not even married.”

“You don’t need to be married to take a concubine.”

“Yeah but why the fuck—hang on—dammit, slow down when I’m speaking to you, you old fucker! Why does having a concubine mean no more titty bars? It’s not like you’re in _love_ or some kind of cheesy shit like that; otherwise you wouldn’t still be speaking like a heathen who worships money.”

“I don’t wish my immortality to be encumbered by venereal disease.” Kakuzu does not slow down. “Something you would do well to remember as well.”

“But Kakuzu! They won’t fucking let me into the titty bars without you because they’re worried I’m going to kill them all!”

“That’s not my problem.”

“Maybe I fucking _should_ kill them all!” Hidan shook his scythe.

“I don’t care what you do.” Kakuzu abruptly stopped and pointed. “The titty bars, as you put it, are that way. Do whatever you want; I’ll see you in a week, and make any necessary repairs then. But Hidan? I _will not_ reattach your dick.”

“Fuck you,” muttered Hidan, without any particular venom behind it as he sulked away to try to wheedle himself into the titty bars. “And fuck your concubine.”

“That’s the idea,” Kakuzu retorted, then finally turned to continue the rest of his journey in blessed silence.

———

Hinata knelt _seiza_ and waited for her father to speak. The entire clan was there, so it must be time for her to be sealed at last.

“I long wondered,” her father said at last, “why, despite being my eldest child, you were so weak. But now fate has made your weakness useful.”

She kept her face neutral, but her heart sped up.

“Your sister distinguished herself in the war in combat,” he continued. “She defended the clan. And she will lead the clan well when I die. She is now of age to marry and bear heirs. Ordinarily, it would be time to seal you and have you defend your sister and her children in the branch house. However… because of a certain reason… the Hyuuga have incurred… a large debt… and the one who holds the debt is willing to wipe it out in exchange for you.”

Hinata’s mouth was so dry she couldn’t even swallow.

“Because of your poor skills, you are ultimately of little to no value to us as a branch member, so in wiping out this enormous debt, you will bring more honour to the clan than I ever hoped,” Hiashi continued. “However, in leaving the clan, more than an ordinary seal will be necessary, to prevent your eyes from being stolen. So the procedure will be slightly different. Lie down on your back.”

Her lips parted and she looked around. Lie down? On the dirty ground in an formal kimono? In front of everyone—

Before she could finish her thought, her father’s hands moved in a blur, hitting various points and completely blocking out her chakra coils, hitting nerve points and rendering her as floppy as a ragdoll. She slumped over, and he rolled her deftly onto the ground.

“I will not brook disobedience, and neither will your new master.”

Then the pain began.

———

“Welcome to the aviary. I am Hyuuga Neji.”

Kakuzu looked at the young man who had spoken. His tone was as colourless as his blank eyes, but there was nonetheless a simmering resentment perceptible in his manner. It took him a moment to understand the allusion to the Caged Bird Seal. “Hmm. I don’t suppose you’d speak that way in front of Hyuuga-sama. If this is an aviary, is my bird ready?”

“She’s still having her wings clipped,” the man responded. “You are early.”

“I prefer to arrive early,” Kakuzu said. “My deals are usually sufficiently in my favour that I may need to prevent the other side from having second thoughts.”

Neji’s expression remained impassive. “Hn. Not this time. I don’t know what hold you had on Hyuuga-sama, but he’s playing it off to the clan as if the entire thing is a master stroke for him.”

“As long as she’s in the condition I paid for,” Kakuzu replied, “I don’t care what he tells the rest of you.”

“You’ll get what you paid for.”

“You’re not going to invite me in?”

“I was instructed not to, because you are not a guest. We handle deliveries at the door.”

Kakuzu chuckled. “So that’s how it is to him? But what about to you? You don’t seem saddened to lose your… cousin, isn't she? Is that because of some defect I should know about?”

The Hyuuga activated his Byakugan briefly, but apparently to check on something elsewhere, not to attack. “I hated everything _about_ her when we were younger,” he said softly, “but eventually I realized there's nothing to hate _in_ her. I would spare her such a degrading fate if I could, but I had thought her fate here would be even worse.”

“Degrading? Women are made for this.”

Those blank eyes seemed to see through him. “No woman, raised as she was, would see becoming a concubine as anything but a degradation.”

Kakuzu snorted. “Do you understand the tax implications of taking a wife? The fees? And that’s not even getting into the matter of a wedding…”

The blank-eyed face didn’t change.

Kakuzu was not one to talk to hear himself, but something about that uncanny blankness seemed to wrench justification out of him. “She will have a perfectly satisfying existence. I do not squander my investments.”

Neji made the tiniest of nods. “Just so. As I said, then, I will hope that she will have a better fate in your house. In any event. She will be ready soon.”

———

After her sealing was over, her hatchet-faced great-aunt took her wordlessly to the bathroom to scrub her face clean of blood, sweat, and tears.

Her heirloom Hyuuga kimono was taken away and she was handed a cheap but new and clean yukata. It was off-the-rack, one size fits most, and didn’t fit her very well in the chest.

When she was led to the main entrance, her father was there just outside the door, speaking with a man in a black cloak with red clouds who towered over both her father and her cousin Neji, who stood slightly apart from them with her sister Hanabi holding his elbow possessively.

Her stomach did a flip. _Oh no. Poor Neji… poor Hanabi, too..._

Hinata’s hands trembled but she squeezed them to still them as she walked forward and sank submissively into a kneel.

“There’s no need for that,” said the stranger in a deep voice. “Stand up.”

She looked up, and her stomach did another flip as she saw his eyes. Hinata was used to hearing her eyes described as unnatural, but this man’s went beyond unnatural to demonic with their blood-red sclera and sickly green irises. Unsteadily, she got to her feet.

She flinched as he reached out and ran a thumb over the scar of her seal, but forced herself to stand still and quiet.

“It’s just as I told you it would be,” her father said.

“Hn. So it seems.” The stranger’s gaze travelled down her body as he pulled his hand back, then he circled her slowly. Hinata swallowed. She felt like an animal at market being inspected before purchase.

Purchase for slaughter.

“She is in fine condition,” the stranger said at last, and removed a sheaf of papers from his cloak. “Here. The debt is erased.”

Her father took the papers. “There should be no need for the Hyuuga to be in contact with you again.”

And then he signalled to her sister and cousin and left. Without a touch or a word…

Hinata looked at her sister and cousin. Hanabi flushed, looked sad, then defiantly turned her face away and walked after her father.

Neji, after a moment, followed after, but paused by Hinata’s side to look at her briefly and to say, “I will think of you. Take care.”

“Th-thank you,” Hinata managed.

“Well,” said her new master as Neji slid the door shut, “it’s always a satisfactory deal when the other side undervalues their goods. Let’s get going. It’s a few hours from here.”

He did not set a punishing pace. Hinata was in good physical condition and could have gone for hours longer when the man threw up a hand to stop her. He formed hand seals and a genjutsu shimmered away, revealing a decently-sized house with a large vegetable garden and a small orchard of fruit trees.

“Go ahead inside,” he said. “I need to check and secure the perimeter.”

She left her sandals in the alcove and opened up a new package of ladies’ house slippers that had clearly been set out for her. Hinata walked into the kitchen and steeled herself.

_A servant. Okay. I don’t know anything about how to be a servant. But I am sure I can learn. At any rate… at least I won’t have to kill anyone ever again…_

This was truly a cheering thought. There was a small nook with cook books, and she selected one and opened it, hoping it would give instructions on the most basic tasks like how to make rice.

When her new master entered, she gave him a little bow, as she was used to seeing the branch family members give her, and greeted him as the servants greeted her father: “Goshujin-sama,”— _master—_ ”what is required?” _This is okay. I can deal with this._

Kakuzu had taken off the black and red cloak, revealing an even more imposing figure with his muscular physique crisscrossed with what seemed to be sutures. There were even sutures at the corners of his mouth. He tilted his head at her for a moment. “What did your father tell you about me?”

Hinata was not sure where to look. “Otou-sama… that is, Hyuuga-sama...” She was at a loss. He hadn’t told her anything. “That… for the honour of the Hyuuga, I was to… ah, t-to be a servant to repay a debt—”

“A servant,” he interrupted her. “Did he use that word?”

Hinata’s mouth closed in dismay as she searched her memory.

“Unbearable for his pride to tell you the truth plainly, I suppose,” he said. “You were not given to me as a servant, but as a concubine.”

She was so startled, she actually met his eyes for a moment before she crumpled to the floor in a faint.

———

“Don’t try to get up,” he said immediately when he saw her eyelids flutter open. “You need to stay lying down for a few minutes after a faint or you’ll faint again.”

“I… I know… I’ve had a fainting problem since I was a child…” she said. Her hands rubbed at the tatami mat he had laid her on nervously. “Did you say… did you say…”

“A concubine, yes. I don’t have or want servants. I don’t pay for people to do something I can do.” He stood up. “I’ll make us a meal.”

Kakuzu returned to the kitchen and began heating dashi broth, then took a container of cold sushi rice from the fridge, vegetables, fish, and tofu. Within fifteen minutes, he had miso soup and _chirashi don_ ready and brought to the table.

When he went back to the tatami room, Hinata was lying there motionless with her eyes closed, but the rapid movement of her chest indicated she was far from asleep. “Come have some food.”

She moved with a curious mixture of well-trained grace and self-conscious awkwardness as she sat at the traditional table. Her hands pressed together tightly as she said, “Itadakimasu,” and bowed.

Kakuzu grunted and picked up his chopsticks. “You should focus on your food. We’ll speak again after.”

Unexpectedly, he enjoyed watching her eat. Her manners were impeccable, of the highest and most formal. Kakuzu only spent time among high society in pursuit of bounties, which rarely included dining, so it had probably been decades since he had seen a woman so precisely and correctly handle her chopsticks and the lid of her miso soup. There was no awkwardness here, and he thought to himself that she had probably had long experience of going through formal meals under the unforgiving eye of her father while enduring some shame or another without letting it show. Her only hesitation was brief, over the shrimp.

“Don’t eat the shrimp if you don’t want to,” he said, and watched as she immediately checked her startle. “I’m sure canned is not of the quality you’re used to.”

“Ah… I actually… when it comes to shrimp…” she told her bowl.

“You don’t like it? Give it to me.” He held out his bowl, and she delicately gave him the shrimp. “What about salmon?”

“Salmon is fine,” she said quickly. “I’m not picky, it’s really only shrimp, crab, scallop… that kind of thing.”

He placed the uneaten slices of salmon from his bowl onto hers. “And what do you like?”

“...Cinnamon rolls…” Her face reddened slightly, and she took a quick bite of rice.

“I don’t believe in dessert,” he said flatly. “Waste of calories and therefore a waste of money. Does nothing but harm your teeth. And expensive.”

That put an end to the conversation.

———

Hinata could sit in a perfect _seiza_ kneel for hours. She would have gone on for days, rather than get up at the end of the meal and follow her… master… to wherever he was going, yet she got up. She followed him.

It was a tatami room with a large futon already set up and no decoration at all. He turned on a floor lamp, because night was falling.

“This will be your room,” he said, turning to face her and gesturing to the wardrobe at her left. “I have already acquired some clothing for you in there. But I think… I may need to invest in some tailored garments for you.”

Her heart thudded in her chest as his gaze focused on her breasts straining at the bonds of the one-size yukata.

“What did you expect of your future?” he said. “I was told you expected to be set aside as heir for your sister. And then? To marry a clansman?”

“Yes,” she said as loudly as she could, which was barely above a whisper.

“To be sealed? And to serve the main house?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think you will find things better here,” he said, and it was not unreasonable. “You will only have me to serve, and I require very little servile work from you. You may have your own liberty, within reason, to garden or entertain yourself when I am not here… and I will not be here for long periods, at times. And when I am here… what I require from you would also be required of a wife.”

 _Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud._ Her blood filled her ears and she willed herself mightily not to faint again. “Yes.”

“In addition to being your room for sleeping, this will also be the room where sex occurs,” he said, and her stomach flipped, and flipped again when he added, “Undress.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for sex under duress, private humiliation, objectification. Very dark and emotionally wrenching.

Hinata did not faint.

_I have endured suffering before… and I must focus on the truth of what he said, I must be reasonable here… this fate could have been worse…_

Her hands picked at the obi.

He began a slow sideways walk as she unwound the obi, folded it, untied the sashes, and rolled them up. She turned to the wardrobe and opened it, hiding her burning face behind the door as she slid the yukata off her shoulders and hung it carefully on a hanger. She had never had to put away her own clothing before, and she fidgeted with it.

“Just put it away.” The dark voice raised goosebumps over her skin as she quickly complied, leaving the items swaying precariously in the closet.

Her hands wanted to shake as she unhooked her chest bindings and began to unwind them. She stole a nervous sideways glance and saw that his demonic eyes were riveted to how her breasts sprang free.

“Amazing,” he said, but it did not feel like a compliment. “Your tits are even bigger than I thought they’d be.”

Hinata’s cheeks burned at this crude reference to her breasts, but he was not done.

“I’d say your rib cage can’t be wider than 70 cm… but those tits have got to be 105, 110… Waist is probably 60… Hips maybe just as wide and delicious as those tits… That body was certainly wasted up until now. Absolutely built for fucking.”

She was so embarrassed and humiliated that she wasn’t even in danger of fainting. Rather she felt numb and far away.

“I could sell you, use the money to purchase a lesser girl, and still make quadruple my profit, easily,” he said, “but I’m not going to do that. The more I see of you, the more pleased I am with my investment. You are going to pay off for me for years to come.” He paused for a moment. “Finish undressing.”

Her cheeks were burning as she slid down her panties, bending her knees to avoid presenting her bottom to him, and then stepping out of them. Hinata swallowed and blinked her eyes hard. She would not cry.

She was concentrating so hard on not crying that she went into a kind of a trance, only broken out of it when she heard him chuckle and was startled when she saw he had somehow become completely naked himself. Her heart thudded against her rib cage. She had never seen a shinobi so completely scarred. His skin was marked over so regularly, in fact, that it looked more like the punishment for criminals.

Well, that would make sense. He was--is--a criminal.

“Interested in evaluating me in return?” His low voice rumbled and prickled at the back of her skull.

She shook her head mutely, snapping her attention rigidly to the bridge of his nose, hoping that this would pass for eye contact.

“As I said before,” he said, “I don’t intend to make this intolerable for you. You should know, I prefer control. So you don’t need to do anything. I will control everything.”

Hinata frowned slightly. Did he mean he would give directions…?

Her gaze was dragged away from his face as the joints of his arms and the stitched scars elsewhere _unjoined_. Strange black tendrils emerged from the openings as a strangled gasp escaped Hinata’s mouth. Without conscious decision, she stepped back.

The gasp became a scream as the threads swarmed her, but she forced herself to stop as they yanked her up and close against Kakuzu’s body, her eyes inches away from his face. The demonic red eyes seemed to gleam with approval. “It’s a little startling, I admit,” he said, “but don’t scream unless the grip is too painful. Understand?”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Only for pain,” he repeated, confusing her, until the threads began to move again. They were pulling apart her legs, opening her up for his perusal in mid-air.

“Lovely,” he rasped. She reflexively jerked as his actual finger traced along her outer labia, but bit her lip to keep her mind focused. The tendrils snuck delicately along the labia and pulled them lightly apart. There was no physical pain, in fact it was almost ticklish, but Hinata could not imagine a pain that would be worse than this humiliation.

 _Of course you can_ , her logical brain sternly ranted at herself. _Think of all the times Hanabi defeated you, that time that Neji-nii-san nearly killed you. Think of all the beatings from Father, and his contempt. That, at least, is all over. I will get used to this. I will. I will endure._

She swallowed and bit down slightly harder on her lip as Kakuzu brushed apart her inner labia with his thumbs to inspect the tiny pink opening. His scarred mouth smiled, and he repeated, “Lovely.”

Then the threads lowered her down to the futon. With most of her weight now on the soft surface, it was slightly more comfortable, but it was hard to relax peering up at her master, especially as the threads readjusted and rewrapped as they lifted her knees up and apart, again displaying her intimate parts obscenely to him.

He had a vial in his hand, and he was applying something to his penis. Against her own better judgment, she looked at it and was stunned to realized that it too was scarred… though it did not seem to have impeded its function.

Kakuzu knelt just before her and she tensed, but he didn’t immediately stick it in her as she initially feared. Instead, he ran his slickened fingers along her vulva, back and forth from the clitoris to the entrance.

It felt… good. Weirdly, _wrongly_ good; unstable and twisted and oh, but it felt _good_.

Growing up in the Hyuuga compound, with Hyuuga bodyguards from her earliest childhood, Hinata was long keenly aware of the constant potential of eyes peering through walls, the utter inability to be private anywhere. Only on a few select missions outside the village had she dared to touch herself like this, but she was so unable to turn off the inner voice that shouted _you might be seen_ that even those few times she had never done much.

She was unseen, here. And utterly helpless to stop it, anyway...

Hinata gasped as a tendril slithered up her side to her round breast. It hefted it with surprising strength for a moment before wrapping itself around the nipple with delicate attention. Another thread attacked the other nipple more vigorously, tweaking it and teasing it into an almost painful peak. She was so distracted by the attention to her breasts that by the time she realized that Kakuzu was positioning his cock at her entrance she only had time to moan “Stop!” before he thrust inside her.

She reflexively struggled a bit, but his threads had her tied down well, and so his cock sunk into her to the hilt.

He stopped, resting deep within her, her cunt fluttering feebly around this alien intrusion as Hinata struggled neither to breathe too shallowly nor too obviously deeply.

“Stop?” He questioned, the sudden stillness of everything shocking her into stillness as well.

She didn’t say anything. Shame filled her. Why had she spoken at all? She was just going to have to put up with it.

His head tilted, considering her lack of verbal response. When he spoke again, it was with dark amusement. “Stop these?” The threads around her wrists forced them down, beneath her back. “Or these?” Her tied up ankles jerked back, pushing his cock at a deeper angle. “Or should I stop teasing your tits?” They began caressing her nipples again. “Or do you want me to stop fucking your cunt?” He began moving again, the scarred ridges of his cock sliding along places she never knew existed inside of her and drawing moans of pleasure unwillingly from her mouth.

“I like those noises better,” Kakuzu said. “I wouldn’t mind hearing more…”

“Ah!” she squealed as one thread suddenly drew back her clitoral hood while the rest shifted the position of her pelvis such that rather than thrusting, he was grinding against her, mercilessly stimulating her exposed clit. It was all too much. She came and came hard, gasping and moaning and wailing into his chest.

She saw stars and she had no concept of time, and then she was being gently laid down onto the futon, and he was standing up, the threads receding into him.

“There’s a bathroom through there, if you want to wash up,” he said. “Good night.”

And then he was gone.

Hinata panted. Slowly, she lifted one hand and ran it along her other arm and then her chest, feeling the indentations of his threads like rope marks. She swallowed, and let the hand trail lower. It was oozing…

She leapt up and ran to the bathroom to clean herself.

\------

In the morning she woke up with shinobi instinct: someone is in the room.

“Byakugan,” she says by habit, but gets nothing in return but a sharp headache. The events of the previous day come swarming back, and she puts a hand to her temple.

“Did you sleep well?”

Hinata sits up, clutching the sheets to her, at a loss. Should she stand? “I… um… I’m alright…?” Should she ask how he is? The branch servants would never dare to pry into her father’s life. But she is not exactly a servant, after all. “Did you sleep well… goshujin-sama?”

“I thought about it and I’d prefer danna-sama,” he answered, ignoring her actual question. While _goshujin_ meant master, _danna_ was a term used from wives to husbands but also geisha to customers, meaning _patron_. Hinata wasn’t sure what to make of his request, but he wasn’t finished. “I want to have you again before breakfast.”

This time he positioned her on her hands and knees. Hinata was surprised to find that this was actually more enjoyable--with her face away from him, it was easier to focus on the pleasurable sensations.  In this position, he actually used his fingers to rub her clit as he fucked her. Hhis thick cock with the bumps of the scar tissue stretching and stimulating her inside, while his threads also teased her nipples, had her coming over and over until she fell limply forward when he finally released her.

“You can wash up and dress. I’ll get breakfast.”

Still facedown on the futon, she heard the door open and shut.

Over the next week, he had sex with her daily. The rest of the time, he taught her how to care for the house. He was brusque and impatient but not cruel as a teacher; he said that he knew when he made the deal that she had lived a sheltered life.

Some of the work was dirty, but no dirtier than killing a human, which she had done before. There were seal jutsu set up to handle feeding and cleaning up after the chickens and pigs and watering the garden when Kakuzu wasn’t there, so the amount of work she would have to do by hand wasn’t impossible. She learned how to work a rice cooker, how to change a lightbulb, how to check the fuel level in the generator, how to plunge a toilet, how to hang washing on a line, how to sweep, how to set up and lock the _amado_ storm shutters and what else to do in case of a storm. And finally, he taught her about the traps and the seal jutsu throughout the house which she could use to signal him in case of an emergency.

And then he left.

Hinata stood alone in the empty and silent house. She heard the chickens nattering to each other in the garden and the wind blowing through the leaves of the fruit trees.

“This isn’t so bad,” she said out loud.

She looked at the books on the bookshelves, all filled with purely practical subjects.

Tears began to fall down her face.

A ninja must never show tears… but there was no one to see. For the first time in her life, _there was no one to see._

She collapsed on the tatami mat and bawled. Ugly tears, snotty, ungraceful, unladylike tears.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbetaed.


End file.
